bbd #5 – Aloo Paratha, potato-stuffed bread

Rolling in Dough hosts the 5th installment of the bread baking day, aptly choosing „stuffed breads“ as a theme. When I read this, I knew I would have to try making aloo paratha, the fabulous potato-stuffed breads from India.

Usually, parathas for aloo paratha are made with water, and some wholemeal flour, but I opted for a basic recipe for „roti prata“ which contains milk and all-purpose or bread flour and is a snap to make and handle and roll out.

Making aloo paratha takes some practice, to make sure the stuffing doesn’t ooze out when you roll out the flatbreads with filling.

Aloo Paratha, with lime pickles and mango chutney

Perfect parathas are a lot flatter than mine 🙂

This video shows how to make the perfect aloo paratha – I copied the technique of folding and wrapping the dough balls, but I would recommend to flatten them with your palm and be careful when applying pressure, before rolling them out.

Aloo Paratha

Dough

3 cups flour, plus more for rolling (I started with about 400 g, sifted, and added a little more while kneading, you will know when the consistency is right)

1 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoon melted ghee

1 cup warm milk

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, add 5 tablespoons of ghee and stir until mixture looks crumbly.

Slowly pour in the milk and mix with your hands. Knead the dough without adding extra flour until it pulls away from the bowl and forms a smooth ball. Continue kneading until the dough feels just slightly sticky, about 10 minutes.

Cut the dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, flatten it slightly, and rub it with ghee. Place the flattened balls on a tray and cover it with a damp cloth.

I used a microplane medium grater for this, but you can use a food processor. Finely grate the potatoes, onion and ginger into a bowl, add remaining ingredients, mix thoroughly, Divide into 8 portions, form small balls of the potato stuffing. Now wrap each flatbread around your dough, close (see video on how to do this) an flatten again. Bake in a hot skillet, brushed with ghee, until brownish spots appear on th ebotom and the crust turns crispy, turn the bread and bake on the other side until done. Brush with ghee, if you want to.

Serve with plain yogurt or any raita, a pickle or a chutney. We had plain Greek yogurt, mango chutney and a lime pickle (which was fabulous with the parathas) as condiments.